Dang, it is that time in the evening again. Time flies. I guess I shouldn’t complain. It seems I’m busy with things to do and places to go to. Tomorrow is Chinese New Year. I wouldn’t have known that if an email friend haven’t sent a greeting. I thought it would be in February. It’s good to have friends who keep you in the know.

I don’t really have a lot of friends. I can count them on one hand. What a thing to admit to, eh? It’s not a bad thing though I DO feel deficient at different times. I can’t handle too many people in my life. I  I’m an introvert, and highly sensitive. I have all the signs. So it is a good thing that I don’t have a whole bunch of people in my life. I would be so stressed and I would piss off many of them. There’s a silver lining under every cloud.

Don’t get me wrong. I am social. I love and need my friends. I just don’t need as/so many as other people. I could have more than I realize. I was surprised hearing that loneliness is such a problem in the UK that they have a minister of loneliness. This man in the UK had spent the last 20 years alone. After the story broke, people responded with a tree, gifts, visits and calls. Christmas is just one day. What about the rest of the year? How do we fix that?

I shouldn’t really be surprised about the loneliness problem. We live such insular lives. Most of us here drive everywhere in our private vehicles. Often we are the only one in the car. I didn’t realize how cut off that made me feel from other people until I had to take the bus because of parking problems. Now I take it once a week to my class on campus. I feel richer for the people contact. I’m in the midst of the young and not so young.

Add to that, I’ve restarted taking Sheba to the off-leash dog parks. We frequented them during our younger years. We’ve been doing mostly just the neighbourhood beat the last 6 or 7 years. We had a group of ‘friends’ at the parks. It was nice to walk and talk together. Some we know, some we knew just first names and some we just knew by faces. Still we felt sort of like family – at the dog park. That group have disappeared but we are now getting to know a different group by going at the same time each day.

Though I have only a very few close friends, all the people that touch my day and life enrich me and help give me a sense of meaning and purpose. I have little groups of ‘family’ and ‘friends’ in different corners – the YWCA, ex-workplace colleagues, Facebook, Instagram, blogoshpere, my email group….It’s good to have friends.

It’s late. I have to say good night. I have to swim in the morning. Here’s a video about an afternoon with my friends to take us out of this 24 day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.